The hugely controversial Keystone XL pipeline will not be part of the final transportation deal, a senior lawmaker and congressional aides said Wednesday.

Senate Environment and Public Works ranking member Jim Inhofe confirmed to reporters that Keystone is out of a final deal along with language trumping EPA coal ash regulations. Inhofe did not confirm what congressional aides have also told POLITICO, that language sending Clean Water Act fines tied to the Gulf of Mexico spill toward Gulf restoration has made the cut in the final deal.

Inhofe reaffirmed what was the conventional wisdom in recent days that Republicans were willing to give up the Keystone and coal ash riders if they were able to add in their preferred language expediting environmental reviews of transportation projects.

“Keystone and coal ash are really kind of one-shot deals. If you get on streamlining, that’s for the next decade or so,” Inhofe told a group of reporters.

The final deal is expected to include a "robust" environmental streamlining section, aides said.

The pipeline has been in the center of a spirited and mostly partisan debate this election year over President Barack Obama’s energy record.

Congressional transportation negotiators — who are racing to finish a bicameral deal this week — are largely leaving out controversial environmental and energy riders House Republicans have particularly advocated. The reason: Lawmakers really want to get this bill through. There is even discussion to couple the transportation bill with the student loan deal, also up against the clock.

One senior transportation lawmaker said a deal would be on the House floor Friday and that negotiators are solely focused on the bill and haven’t talked about a short-term extension of current law.

House Republicans had brought language into the talks authorizing the northern leg of the Keystone pipeline — extending from the Montana-Canada border to Steele City, Neb.

A final deal is expected to include the RESTORE Act — a plan that would send 80 percent of Clean Water Act fines tied to the Gulf of Mexico spill toward Gulf Coast restoration.

Inhofe said the overall deal is due to the “incredible willingness to compromise" by Environment and Public Works Chairwoman Barbara Boxer. He said neither side would have compromised “unless we were in really desperate need of a highway bill.” The country has operated on stop-gap transportation policy for nearly three years.

The news of the Keystone omission follows other potentially good news for the White House.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Monday granted approval of the first of three district permits TransCanada needs to construct the southern leg of the Keystone pipeline that Obama pledged this spring to expedite.

The southern leg would connect oil tanks in Cushing, Okla., to refineries in Texas.

The State Department this month also announced the start of a new environmental review into TransCanada’s revised northern U.S. route for the pipeline. The route — which is still being reviewed by Nebraska officials — is intended to avoid the state’s Sandhills region.

Adam Snider and Kathryn A. Wolfe contributed to this story.

This article first appeared on POLITICO Pro at 2:42 p.m. on June 27, 2012.